Everyone against Scottie Scheffler. This is the refrain of every week in the world of golf, and even more so when there is a Major tournament just around the corner. In fact, the US Open 2024 will be staged from Thursday to Sunday, the third of the four most important events on the calendar each year. And the undisputed no.1 in the world arrives with five victories already this season, and after having also triumphed at the Memorial last week.
For this year the test that the players will have to pass will be the demanding path of Pinehurst No. 2. We will go to North Carolina for the fourth time in the last twenty-five years, for the 25th anniversary of the incredible 1999 victory of Payne Stewart holed out a putt for incredible par with Phil Mickelson finishing just one stroke behind. On the last occasion that the tournament was held in these latitudes, 10 years ago, Martin Kaymer triumphed. The German literally asphalted the competition, closing the four days at -9, distancing the second place by eight strokes.
There are now infinite spaces needed to describe what Scheffler is doing. The American will play his seventh US Open, and as his best result he boasts second place in 2022 in Brookline, when he came second. As mentioned, the twenty-seven-year-old has already won five triumphs this season, a number last achieved before this week by Tom Watson in 1980. Tiger Woods will also be on the tee of onereturning to action after missing the cut at the PGA Championship, with Xander Schauffele who instead won in Valhallaand will certainly be motivated to bring home another great performance.
Tiger instead obtained a special exemption to be on the field from the USGA, after the exemption for having won the 2019 Masters has now expired; and for him it will be the first US Open since 2020. Rory McIlroy has already won twice this season and finished second in this tournament last year in Los Angeleseven if he doesn’t have a good feeling with Pinehurst. Collin Morikawa is also in great form, with the Swede Ludvig Aberg who can never be excluded from the list of favourites. Defends Wyndham Clark titlewhich surprised everyone last year but is now a solid reality in world golf.
In the major that allows more golfers than the less ‘elite’ to participate there will also be three Italians, the three Italians who have most marked the history of golf in Italy in the last two decades: Francesco Molinari, Edoardo Molinari and Matteo Manassero. All three have won qualifying tournaments around the world and want to put in a performance to remember. Let’s start with the only Italian who has won a Majro, Chicco Molinari who triumphed in Carnoustie in the 2018 Open.
It was a season to forget for the Turin native, with his level of play now very far from what a decade ago made him the best golfer in the world for a good period of time. For him US Open number 14 in his career, in a week that often saw him struggle, Francesco boasts 13th place in 2021 in Torrey Pines as his best result. His brother Edoardo will instead make his fifth appearance in this majorwith three out of four cuts passed. Continue writing a crazy story Manasserowho will return to one of the four biggest events of the year for the first time since 2016, with incredible motivation to try to do something immense.
